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Luthiers Workshop

Part 1 Project 2009
Jonathan Mennie
 Robert Gordon University | UK
The skill of the luthier is one of careful precision, delicate touch and a mastery of understanding the material. The manipulation of the wood, from rough sawn wedges through to the highly finished violins and cellos, can take a lifetime to perfect and is a craft to be respected.

This project involved creating a work and retail space for a 3 person collaboration of violin makers from a Grade III listed sandstone coach house and back garden in St Andrews, Fife. The inner floors and walls are stripped to leave a double height space and exposed rafters into which a timber insert is placed to provide an upper minstrels gallery and retail space beneath. One wall is left unplastered, revealing the exposed inner sandstone wall. Leading from the retail space is an external corridor, leading to work and living quarters, that passes behind a screen of stacked through-and-through cut timber held in place by wires suspended from a roof overhang.

Inspiration for the extension is a direct response to the manipulation of wood and the making of violins, whereby wedges of timber are glued together and carved out.

Through-cut sections are stacked on top of one another to form “screens” between workshop and garden. The exterior face of the timber is left rough, retaining the bark and moss that existed when the timber was cut, giving the facade a raw exterior presence. The interior face is sawn, and the treatment of these stacks hint to the transition the timber makes at the hands of the luthier. The spaces created between the stacks work together with roof lights to provide a delicate illuminance to the workspace behind. Wood stores and a small residence face onto an intimate private courtyard and continue the idea of the timber stacks.

The building as a whole is sensitive to the surroundings and its scale, portraying an almost untreated natural facade to counteract the visual impact of a new build.

Jonathan Mennie

Year 3 Scott Sutherland School of Architecture + Built Environment

Year 3 at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture encourages the students to think in an integrative manner about design and technology, bringing it together as the ‘Art of Building’. The academic year is divided into two semesters and two distinct projects. The first introduces the student to working with existing building fabric. They are asked to adopt a craft sensibility, an intimate reflection on anthropometrics and the interpretation of a complex brief, this year, a Luthier’s workshop and residence in St.Andrews / Scotland.
Tutor(s)

Mr Iain Ramsay
2009
Wedges of timber cut from the tree are fashioned into violins by gluing two of the wedges together and then carving them hollow. This transformation of our simplest construction material into a beautiful object is an art form in itself.
Development model showing the early concept of timber stacks.
The timber “stacks” take on a twist of the now overused application of louvres on modern buildings. Simply, the stacks tell of the process taking place within the workshop, with gaps of varying sizes to allow the storage of cut timber.
Section and elevation through the existing coach house and new extension. The linear nature of the timber stacks could suggest the strings of an instrument, or perhaps the lines on a sheet of music.
Plans of the coach house and extension, showing the progression from the public retail space to the north through to the workshop and residence.
Interior model showing the spacial quality of the workshop area.
Constructional diagrams detailing the fixings of the timber stacks and support rods to the roof overhang, and the timber post and beam structural details.
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